My boyfriend and I decide to order pickup from a local breakfast place. The cashier seems ditzy and easily distracted. She asks us to hold at first and just never puts the phone down but speaks to other customers while the phone is on her ear; we keep thinking she’s speaking to us. When she finally tells us to go ahead, she keeps randomly stopping speaking to us and speaking to other servers and customers without putting the phone down or telling us. After a long time, we finally are almost done with our order.

Boyfriend: “The last thing is an order of French toast. It says, ‘Your choice of bread.’ Can we get brioche?”

Cashier: “Brioche buns?”

Boyfriend: “Oh, no, brioche bread for the French toast.”

Cashier: “I need to talk to my manager.” 

She sets the phone down without waiting for our response and doesn’t pick up again for several minutes

Cashier: “That’s a $3 upcharge.”

Boyfriend: “Um. We don’t want brioche hamburger buns made into French toast. We wanted brioche bread. Is that not an option? What can we get?”

Cashier: “Oh! I thought you wanted buns made into French toast. No, we don’t do brioche bread.”

Boyfriend: “That’s fine. What can we get?”

Cashier: “Oh, white bread.” 

We wait a moment, expecting other options, and we finally realize there aren’t any.

Boyfriend: *Sigh* “That’s fine, and that’s all for our order, please.”

When we picked up our food and started eating, I realized my French toast was pretty much just powdered sugar on the driest toast I’ve ever eaten — seemingly no egg or cinnamon in the equation. We haven’t gone back.

I walk in the door before we open and the phone is ringing, so I answer it.

Caller: “I want to place a delivery order.”

Me: “We don’t deliver, but you can order through [Third-Party App].”

Caller: “How do I go about doing that?”

Me: “You can either do it through your cell phone or on your computer.”

Caller: *Screaming* “I don’t have a computer or a smartphone! You need to order it for me or update your system!”

Me: “Sir, it’s a third-party app that we have no control over.”

Caller: “I don’t give a s*** if it’s a third party or a fifth party!”

I have been nice up to this point, although annoyed. Bluntly, I say:

Me: “I cannot help you. You either need to pick it up yourself, use curb-side, or eat in.”

Caller: “I live down the street! Someone needs to bring it to me!”

I cut him off with the hold button and gave the phone to my boss. He lost twenty-six minutes of his life explaining the same things I had just told the customer.

He never did get food.

Related:
Deliver Us From Bad Customers

I work at a sit-down chain restaurant. A group of teenagers, fresh out of their last day of high school, comes in to celebrate. They even bring a cake with them; this isn’t a big deal, except we don’t allow that because we serve cake.

One of the more level-headed ones talks to a manager, and we decide to let it slide, even giving them extra plates.

Fast forward to about an hour later, when the cake is being cut up. These kids are borderline drunk now — we found out later they had spiked their drinks — and one of them gets the bright idea to smush his cake into his friend’s face. This starts an all-out riot at the table, with drunk eighteen-year-olds throwing cake, half-eaten burgers, cups of Dr. Pepper and mysterious alcohols, and even silverware at each other.

Our managers come out, but policy is to not touch patrons at all (lawsuits and stuff), so we have to wait for the cops to come. They do, eventually, and take the lot of them away.

Since it is my table and servers bus their own there, I am stuck with the job of cleaning up the remains. Cake was ground into the carpet, and the stains are still there. I spend maybe three hours making that section presentable again. The worst part is, since the kids were arrested, they didn’t pay. I got no tip and registered zero sales (manager comps don’t reflect in your total) for five hours of my shift, and I later found out that one of the children’s parents was suing the restaurant for not keeping a better eye on her adult son.

I work at a famous buffet as a line cook, where you can actually order meals there other than “buffet, please.” You get a choice of side: either French fries or baked potatoes. Today we are slammed with business and completely run out of baked potatoes.

A customer walks in, standing at 6’4”. He’s a large man, clad in denim with a mustache thicker than Sam Elliot’s. His lips part, and out come the words:

Customer: “Buffet and a ribeye.”

The host begins to speak but is shut down.

Customer: “With a baked potato.”

Host: “We currently are all out of potato. We can offer you—”

The man’s face turns a shade of fuchsia not even Crayola could name. His eyes bulge, his lips tighten. The air blowing in and out of his mouth creates a rippling tornado of absolute fury around him.

Customer: “NO POTATOES.”

Host: “We—”

Customer: “NO POTATOES?!”

He moves faster than expected and pokes his angry face back into the kitchen.

Customer: *Waving a finger* “NO POTATOES! WHAT’S GOING ON?! NO POTATOES! YOU SHOULD BE FIRED!”

His family had to pull him back to the front desk, still hollering. He accepted the sad terms we had to give him: French fries. The kitchen was on the other side of the wall from the buffet line, so I walked around to see him eating his steak.

He just ate it with pure spite. I’ve never seen anyone mow on a buttered well-cooked steak with just pure hatred. He didn’t even enjoy the buffet. He just sighed when he had to pick up the tongs/spoon/ladle like it wasn’t enough. There will always be a baked-potato-shaped hole in that man’s heart.

A young, pregnant coworker has a stranger stare disapprovingly at her and then walk up and say:

Customer: “Pregnancy isn’t very becoming on you.”

Coworker: “Well, being a nosey rude b**** isn’t becoming on you, but here we are.”